Brasserie Dieu du Ciel Expands its Offerings in Vancouver

Montreal’s Brasserie Dieu du Ciel celebrates further expansion into the Vancouver market with special event at Steel Toad Brewpub

With BC’s craft beer boom in full swing, industrious and innovative breweries from other regions are looking to expand here to capture some of the market for themselves. What does this mean for BC beer drinkers?

Innovation and style

Brasserie Dieu du Ciel is one of the breweries that are expanding their reach in BC. The Montreal craft brewery partnered with Untapped Craft Imports to bring their product to a Vancouver market that is hungry for new options and innovative choices.

Like many Quebecois breweries, Dieu du Ciel approaches their beer with a passion and excitement that many beer drinkers in BC will fully understand. Their intriguing recipes offer something delicious and unique. Like some of our home-grown boundary-pushers like Four Winds, Strange Fellows, and Driftwood, Dieu du Ciel seeks to change the way you think about beer and beer drinking.

Beers at the Dieu du Ciel event were served in branded wine glasses printed with an intricate hop vine pattern and each beer on offer was something exciting and unusual. Even the Helles Lager was a leap away from tradition with some prominent hop notes and a distinctly heavier mouthfeel than a typical interpretation of the style.

A brett aged beer with blackberry puree provided some exquisite mild tartness and funk, while a sherry barrel aged Quadrupel was intensely fruity and vinous. Other offerings included a barleywine that straddled the line between an Imperial IPA and a strong ale – similar to Driftwood’s Old Cellar Dweller – as well as a west coast IPA, a dark saison with cassis, and a single-hopped pale ale among others. Only three of the beers on offer were less than 6% ABV.

Helping to push BC’s boundaries

The beers that Dieu du Ciel is bringing to the BC market are indeed special and interesting. These clearly aren’t your typical pale ales and lagers that most eastern breweries might export to our province.

Dieu du Ciel’s confidence in sending these big beers our way means a couple of things for the local breweries here.

Importantly, it solidifies the notion that BC beers and breweries are already pushing boundaries and creating beers that are challenging palates. There is a reason that many of our BC breweries are well-known outside of our burgeoning beer bubble: they are creating quality and innovation in each beer they make.

BC’s beer drinkers are also a savvy bunch. As our local breweries experiment and expand their repertoires, attitudes of average craft beer drinkers in the province expand to accept new styles and flavours. This means that we in BC are now prime targets for breweries from other provinces or countries that are looking to expand their operations. The success of our own BC breweries means we will be seeing many more like Dieu du Ciel bringing their delicious creations our way. Expect to see more Dieu du Ciel beers in local tap houses such has Darby’s, St Augustine’s, and Biercraft, while bottles will be available at your favourite bottle shop or private liquor store.

This expansion will ultimately be good for our local breweries as much as the expanded choice will be good for the craft beer consumer. We need only look to the exceptional collaboration beers created between breweries like Four Winds and Trou du Diable or Strange Fellows and Modern Times Beer to see that the maturation of the BC market pays dividends for beer drinkers and breweries alike.